


Eavesdropping

by lexyhamilton (ohheichoumyheichou)



Series: How Have the Mighty Fallen [3]
Category: Christian Bible (Old Testament), תנ"ך | Tanakh
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-28
Updated: 2014-09-28
Packaged: 2018-02-19 02:00:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2370281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohheichoumyheichou/pseuds/lexyhamilton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jonathan's squire stumbles upon his superiors' secret.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eavesdropping

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2007, reposted from LJ, AFF.net etc  
> Blanket disclaimer on all my biblefic: this is fiction inspired by stories and characters in the Old Testament, not any sort of exegesis or legitimate interpretation.

As soon as a campaign is declared over, David appears outside Jonathan’s tent. Or pauses outside, as if to humor us squires who are supposed to announce him, but then barge in quickly anyway. Jonathan was not one to chastise anyone for lack of manners, least of all this close friend. And because of this kindness David will never learn to enter a tent properly, I think, grating my teeth as he brushes past me without even a token pause this time.

“Victory again, Cousin?" he begins babbling immediately. "Does God ever tire of protecting Judea, I wonder…”

“David, do not blaspheme.” But Jonathan is laughing, only now noticing the big bouquet of palm branches David has brought with him. “You traverse the camp all the way here to bring me dates?”

“And myself. Though I cannot be sure which is the sweeter prize to you.”

Jonathan smiles. Smiles as he does only to that Judahite, as if they were kin, though to me they could not be more different. David son of Jesse is not so much older than me—only seveal years difference, and yet he commands a thousand men. He slew Goliath at seventeen, as Jonathan relates it, eyes glowing at the mere reminiscence. It makes me want to embark on something more outrageous and but once have Jonathan hold me in similar esteem. Cowardice plagues me, and how David came out to duel the Philistine giant I shall never know. By taking advantage of his natural presumptuousness, perhaps.

Silently my lord moves to David, embraces him, first with soldierly camaraderie, but then they kiss, far more familiar than is the custom among men. I know Jonathan’s formal kisses well from tending to him for the past two years, and I tremble inwardly at the depth of this one.

“Let us taste the dates so I might decide.”

They laugh in alarming unison, like shy lovers, eager to please. Lovers. I am struck by a realization that they are lovers, whether they acknowledge it or not. The forbidden love only whispered about by adults and laughed about by the boys. It seems impossible—Jonathan’s beauty, his openness… he is the most chaste soldier in the army, the most virtuous of Saul’s sons. Why? My hatred of David is supplanted by terror on Jonathan’s behalf. Saul in his mad rages screams his son has been bewitched by David son of Jesse’s wiles, and now I see that he is right.

“Avimelech, thank you for attending to me. Go and make merry with the other squires. They are no doubt celebrating our victory somewhere.”

“But, My Lord, when are you retiring to bed?”

“Far later than you should—I am likely to talk into dawn with this reprobate.” Jonathan looks back at his friend, deferential even in his ribbing. David’s smug smile angers me but I am helpless to do anything against him.

Jonathan finally tears his gaze away back to me. “So you need not concern yourself with us, Avimelech. Go and enjoy yourself this night before we march back to the citadel in the morning.”

I want to say more but cannot, and my legs are as wood when I leave them together. I have half a mind to follow Jonathan’s recommendation, but curiosity and dread win out and I crouch down beside the tent entrance, strange, desperate emotions with no name rending my chest in half as I listen to their idle talk.

“Was this a victory of no regrets?”

“I always have regrets, David, you should know. I lost fifteen men in my regiment.”

“Fifteen is nothing to their hundreds.”

“I grieve over them individually, so their small number does not quite diminish the melancholy. The sorrow of a widow and the weeping of orphans cannot be weighed against the happiness of a victory on the field.”

“Truly spoken, I fear, but beautifully. Will you lend these words to me for a song, Cousin?”

“You may take and keep—it is only in your presence that my words take on any musicality, so consider them your own.”

David chuckles. Not true! my mind protests as I recall many an instance of Jonathan’s soft-spoken wisdom without this cheap poet in attendance. He flatters David too often, the youth who requires no praise to think highly of himself.

I can hear only one of them eating, and I am sure it is David, who still retains some of the coarse shepherd’s ways about him and dines loudly. He speaks first.

“And so the verdict?”

“Though the tongue prefers mundane sweetness, the rest of me prefers the bearer.”

I choke on a gasp I do not want heard.

I hear shuffling, whispers I cannot make out, quiet laughs, a mumbled blessing and then I hear the sound of making love, not so different than how it sounded with my parents when I overheard them at home, and I am astounded to hear Jonathan’s voice-- guttural, wanton, barely recognizable-- make small moans over and over. My own body is aroused by the hushed noises, and I catch myself wishing to see Jonathan’s face at this moment. I do not encourage my body so that it may quiet down and have no part in the sin taking place only a heavy cloth door away from me.

“David…” I hear Jonathan exhale, voice hazy and thick with lust, and my heart floods with anger that it is David who garners this love—David who is all shiny veneer and putrid manipulation and ambition underneath. Will not God smite them for these transgressions? Perhaps they are spared for Jonathan’s goodness. David should not have been spared, I contemplate, manhood softened by now but hands hardened into futile fists.

Not a word is murmured between them after David wails out his climax. A beautiful voice, I am forced to admit, controlled and fluid even at such a moment of tension. Perhaps it is the root of poor Jonathan’s infatuation with him.

They grow quiet and I wait until I am fairly certain they are asleep and enter the tent. I can plainly see David’s arms grasping Jonathan’s body with a sense of possession, of sickening entitlement. Had the moon not been bright enough to afford a view of them intertwined as men hardly should be, I could have guessed at the sin that took place by the heavy scent of sex. Jonathan’s tent is the cleanest in every campaign, and he invariably uses jasmine oil to displace the reek of the battlefield that he brings in with him after a particularly bloody day. But this son of Jesse, with his unclean coarse ways, renders this tent hardly Jonathan’s anymore. Just as, no doubt, he will creep in and usurp the throne while Jonathan looks on with loving artlessness.

For God’s sake, I can’t stand the thought of it anymore. I quietly fumble around for the bottle of jasmine oil, intent on pouring it around and quenching out David’s presence, but the uncorking is loud, and I suddenly see Jonathan’s dark eyes slip open. He looks at me, and I at him, wordlessly. David is lying so intimately close to him that he might well be still inside Jonathan’s body, for all I know. My cheeks flush, and my traitorous manhood rears up at the thought and the awkward silence thickens between me and that lecherous bed.

“Avimelech, you are a sensible lad,” Jonathan suddenly whispers without making the least effort to extricate himself from David’s telltale grip. “Do not make things difficult for Saul.”

“Surely I will not, Lord Jonathan.” And I will not. I will not tell anyone, because I love Jonathan too much, and hate David not quite enough. “As long as I serve you. And longer.”

Jonathan smiles—not so much with relief, as with the confidence of one who has no reason to be betrayed by any friend. The nagging feeling that I have condoned sin evaporates, for how could an open, virtuous smile like this accompany an act the elders paint so vile?

I whisper good night and back out into fresh air, trying to forget about David. Trying hard not to see in my mind’s eye what I heard taking place this night.


End file.
